The IESG charter process (Re: Definition of power and responsibility)

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand]

--On onsdag, mars 05, 2003 08:36:31 -0500 Margaret Wasserman 
<mrw at windriver.com> wrote:

>> What has (historically) been missing was an "IESG Charter" document.
>> Such documents (normally issued as BCPs with the full process that
>> implies) constitute the formal delineation and grant of powers by
>> the IETF Community to the body that is chartered.
>>
>> It appears that this is in the process of being remedied.
>
> Harald published one, but I haven't heard of any IETF-wide
> activity to discuss and/or approve it.  I personally thought
> that what Harald wrote was pretty good, in terms of documenting
> the IESGs current role (and that's how he billed it).
>
> Someone just mentioned that it is being discussed on the
> mailing list of a closed WG.  Is it being discussed in any
> active WG?

No - there's no active WG that has a charter going anywhere near it.
When we closed the Poisson WG, the community seemed to be in favour of 
keeping the list open for process issues that didn't warrant their own 
working group, so it seemed obvious to use that list for discussion - but 
may be only obvious to those who participated there in the past :-(

I did put the list name in the drafts and in my mention of them on the IETF 
list, though, even though I spelled it wrong :-( (the list is 
poised at lists.tislabs.com - use -request convention to subscribe).

> Nothing has been done (that I've seen, anyway) to determine
> if IETF community has consensus about an IESG charter.  So, an
> IESG charter is not, IMO, close to finished.

The number of suggested changes has been relatively small. I've got an -02 
version of the charter that I'm going to publish after San Francisco, and 
thought that I'd do a 4-week Last Call after that, to see if there are more 
issues that need to be raised.

Since this is mainly documenting what we (the community and the IESG) think 
that the role of the IESG is *currently*, there's only so many changes that 
are worth folding in.

I fully expect the process that comes out of this WG to propose 
redefinitions of the IESG's role, and resulting changes to the IESG's 
charter - that's only natural; the current charter draft is a 
"documentation of the status quo ante".

Do read it, and do comment!

                 Harald